Illustration from Jules Verne's 1877 novel Hector Servadac (English title: Off on a Comet)
Comets have appeared in works of fiction since at least the 1830s. They primarily appear in science fiction as literal objects, but also make occasional symbolical appearances in other genres. In keeping with their traditional cultural associations as omens, they often threaten destruction to Earth. This commonly comes in the form of looming impact events, and occasionally through more novel means such as affecting Earth's atmosphere in different ways. In other stories, humans seek out and visit comets for purposes of research or resource extraction. Comets are inhabited by various forms of life ranging from microbes to vampires in different depictions, and are themselves living beings in some stories.
Comets have appeared in works of fiction since at least the 1830s. They primarily appear in science fiction as literal objects, but also make occasional...
Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction Asteroids infictionCometsinfiction Disasters in popular culture Comets have a long history of being associated...
appears in Charles L. Harness's 2000 time travel story "A Boost in Time" in an attempt to save the dinosaurs from extinction. Cometsinfiction Pluto in fiction...
featuring comets. While the event is generally held to have been caused by a meteor air burst, several alternative explanations have been proposed both in scientific...
Night of the Comet is a 1984 American science fiction comedy horror film written and directed by Thom Eberhardt. It stars Catherine Mary Stewart, Robert...
are called "great comets". Comets have been visited by uncrewed probes such as NASA's Deep Impact, which blasted a crater on Comet Tempel 1 to study its...
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to SF or sci-fi) is a genre of speculative fiction, which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts...
First Battle of the Ia Drang Valley Campaign in Mel Gibson's 2002 film We Were Soldiers, based on the non-fiction book We Were Soldiers Once... And Young by...
as a setting in works of fiction since at least the mid-1600s. Trends in the planet's portrayal have largely been influenced by advances in planetary science...
only been observed in very bright comets such as Hale–Bopp and C/2012 S1 (ISON). From the infrared signature, the diameter of the comet nucleus is estimated...
measurements. Over 300 short-period comets pass near larger planets, such as Saturn and Jupiter, which can change the comets' trajectories and could potentially...
"Into the Comet" is a science fiction short story by British writer Arthur C. Clarke. It was originally published in Fantasy & Science Fictionin October...
In the Days of the Comet (1906) is a science fiction novel by H. G. Wells in which humanity is "exalted" when a comet causes "the nitrogen of the air...
voyaging: 217, 220 ) is a classic science-fiction theme that has captivated the public and is almost archetypal for science fiction. Space travel, interplanetary...
transatlantic Comets a week out of London, plus 10 BOAC Britannias and 11 DC-7Cs. In April 1960, 13 Comets, 19 Britannias and 6 DC-7Cs. Comets quit flying...
passage of comet Hale-Bopp. Since 1985, a total of 8 comets have been visited by spacecraft. Little is known of what people thought about comets before Aristotle...
Science fiction (or sci-fi or SF) is a film genre that uses speculative, fictional science-based depictions of phenomena that are not fully accepted by...
The Sun has appeared as a setting infiction at least since classical antiquity, but for a long time it received relatively sporadic attention. Many of...
Venus has been used as a setting infiction since before the 19th century. Its opaque cloud cover gave science fiction writers free rein to speculate on...
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